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Loeske Kruuk

Profile

Biography

I'm an evolutionary ecologist with a broad range of interests in how evolution works, especially considering the role of genetics and environment in shaping life history differences between individuals in a population: why is there so much diversity? I did an undergraduate degree in maths, but then realised that I wanted to be a biologist, so did a PhD in population genetics at the University of Edinburgh, UK, finishing in 1997. I then did a postdoc at the Universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, working on a long-term study of red deer. This project introduced me to the huge potential of long-term studies of wild animal populations to explore a wide range of interesting questions about life history evolution and quantitative genetics, and since then I have been lucky enough to be involved in studies of a variety of species. I started a Royal Society University Research Fellowship at Edinburgh in 2000, and became Professor of Evolutionary Ecology there in 2009. In 2012, I took up an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship at ANU. I am currently an editor for Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and have previously been on the editorial boards of Evolution, Journal of Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Proc Roy Soc B.

Research interests

I am an evolutionary ecologist, with a particular interest in biological diversity at the microevolutionary level, within a population. One of my main research interests at the moment is the effect of climate change on evolutionary processes in wild populations, but I am also interested generally in inheritance, natural and sexual selection, senescence, sexually-antagonistic effects, phenotypic plasticity, inbreeding depression and maternal effects. My main research systems in the past have been two long-term UK ungulate studies (Red deer and Soay sheep), but in Australia I am now working on the well-studied population of superb fairy wrens in the Australian National Botanic Gardens, and am involved with other projects including effects of climate change on bird species across Australia, quantitative genetics and plasticity in mosquitofish, and quantitative genetics of geckos.

Other positions held

Editor for Proceedings of the Royal Society London Series B.

Previously Associate Editor for Genetics, Evolution, Journal of Evolutionary Biology and Proc. Royal Soc London B.